This invention concerns a reflector for a dimmed or dimmable motor vehicle headlight whose reflector includes an asymmetrical wedge-shape sector, an upper sector and a lower sector and whose reflection surface is arranged such that a desired light distribution is achieved without a correcting lens.
Such a reflector is described in German Auslegeschrift No. 22 05 610. The reflection surface of the reflector described therein for dimmable or dimmed headlights includes an asymmetrical wedge-shaped sector, an upper sector and a lower sector. A horizontal cross section taken through a middle axis of the reflection surface has the shape of a hyperbola while a vertical cross section taken through the middle axis produces a parabola. With this arrangement, the reflection surface supposedly produces a desired light distribution without a correcting lens. However, only a general preshaping of a light bundle for a desired distribution is created by this known arrangement, but to actually achieve a desired light distribution the use of an optical, or correcting light transmissive shield or lens is still necessary. Such correcting light transmissive shields, or lenses, are expensive. The use of correcting light transmissive shields is sometimes difficult with motor vehicles for which light transmissive shields must be extremely curved or angled from the vertical and/or the driving direction.
German Offenlegungsschrift No. 26 44 385 describes a dimmable headlight in which a desired light distribution is reported to be achieved with a reflector without a correcting light transmissive shield, or lens. The shape of a reflective surface of the reflector, however, must be determined through a differential equation whose solutions are parabolic sectional cuts. The possibilities of producing a reflector using parabolic cross sectional cuts whose light distribution corresponds to a desired light distribution are limited. That is, for example, it is only possible to shift an individual light filament image relative to other light filament images in a direction perpendicular to the horizontal through a vertex.
Thus, this invention has the purpose of providing a reflector whose light distribution in horizontal and vertical zones perpendicular to a headlight or beam middle axis fully corresponds to a desired light distribution in which an optically active light transmissive shield, or lens, is unnecessary.